The Third Wife (2018 film)

Category: Period drama/foreign language film

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Foreign language films can be a treasure-trove for film buffs, and I have to say, I'm glad I came across this one.

Storyline and everything else aside, if you love the art of film-making and storytelling, this movie is a must-watch. The attention to detail and level of authenticity that has gone into this production is simply mind-blowing - while I'm no expert on 19th century Vietnamese serfdom, it's clear the whole crew spent great effort getting the sets right, the clothing right, and even the props. If you want period drama, this is right up your alley!

Now, the name The Third Wife may already give some of the story away, but that's OK.

The plot of The Third Wife is as such - May (Nguyễn Phương Trà My) is a 14 year old who becomes the third wife of a wealthy land-owner in rural Vietnam, with the opening shot of the movie being May almost literally being sold down the river. She is then accepted in to the established order of things and is continually counselled on the ways of being a wife by the first wife Ha (Trần Nữ Yên Khê) and second wife Xuan (Mai Thu Hường) and becomes good friends with one of the daughters of Xuan (which would technically be her step-niece). It becomes apparent to May that giving birth to a son is the way to rise up the ranks in the hierarchy, and May finds she is pregnant after wedding night shenanigans.

On the way to the impending birth, there is drama including an affair, the subtle manipulation to ensure May stays down in the pecking order, Ha's pregnancy and miscarriage, the sexual attraction of May towards Xuan, the repulsion May feels towards her husband (who actually isn't an evil or overbearing guy, just a guy with a lot of power) and the opposition to marriage that the oldest son is having that plays out with tragic consequences.

In the end, May gives birth, and the second-to-last scene is one of those "choose your own interpretation" scenarios where she literally has life in one hand and death in the other.

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With that out of the way, some notes:

- As horrific as all everything depicted may be to our modern sensibilities, it's great how this movie didn't try to sermonise or demonise. It just tells a story using a backdrop foreign to modern western audiences while allowing the audience to see for themselves that in those times, people did what they had to to survive and were subjected to forces and cultural norms they have little to no say in.

- I found that while the story did move somewhat slowly, very rarely did any scene last for longer than two minutes, even the wedding night scene. Each scene is short, to the point and does what it needs to, then ticked along. This is actually fairly discordant when you're used to movies that can have scenes going for many minutes at a time.

- The cinematography is fucking A grade - I so want to go to Vietnam now!!

- Apparently, the director wanted this movie to be a silent black and white with no dialogue, just music. Yikes! Glad we didn't get that! Now, maybe a silent black and white version of this film might be good as a background at an art gallery, but it would really sell the efforts of the actors short.

- There is an elephant in the room we have to address - should the main actress have been cast in that role to perform what she did? We know straight up that the story concerns a 14 year old girl getting married, so it's not exactly a movie about two people doing their tax returns. My initial thoughts during the opening scenes was that they must have got an older teenager, or maybe a really young-looking woman - but no. It turns out that the actress playing May WAS ONLY TWELVE!!!

So when we see her topless or when she is performing sexual actions, we now know it's a twelve-year old girl we are seeing. While the whole production was done with a profound sense of maturity and professionalism, knowing what I (as well as the Vietnamese government) know now, there is a certain level of retrospective discomfort.

- For me, the only downers were the last two scenes, and in particular the very last one. Like, sure, we don't mind a good ambiguous ending, but sometimes stories are better off being closed and done. Or if the director really did need to end on an ambigious note, the last scene should have been May with her baby, and the hair cutting scene placed somewhere earlier in the piece rather than at the very, very end.

All in all, this is a pretty decent movie! Really well done!

STAR RATING: 4.5/5